


MIA

by mific



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Afghanistan, Alternate Universe - Earth, Community: satedan_grabass, Fanfiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-03 12:49:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fic and Art: "Why the fuck'd you go off against orders and get yourself shot down in Taliban country?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	MIA

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rustler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rustler/gifts).



> Created for satedan_grabass 2012, for Rustler. Rustler asked for companionship, adventure or depending on each other - hopefully this covers some of those.  
> An Earth-based AU, with canon resonances but not dovetailing with canon. Explanations of some words and abbreviations are at the end. Huge thanks to Busaikko for the beta, especially as I was again cutting it pretty close to the deadline.
> 
> Warnings: Mentions of deaths (none that don't happen in canon) and of physical abuse and privation – no actual torture.

 

\-----------------

  
John didn't hear the shot that brought him down. The missile went wide but still trashed one of the rotor blades and sent his Pave Hawk into a wild spiraling dive as he fought for control. He'd never have made it if he hadn't been barely off the ground.

He'd been stupid, inattentive, too fucked up after finding Mitch and Holland and the soldiers they'd evacced lying crumpled in the wreckage of their chopper. All dead. He'd wanted to bury them but the hillside was mostly rock. Couldn't even burn their bodies – no trees and a fuel fire would send up a plume of black smoke: might as well get on the radio and ask the Taliban for the next dance. It killed him to leave them, though, tossed there like so much trash, like none of them mattered. They deserved a pyre.

The insurgents found him just fine with no need for smoke signals. They'd probably been watching the crash site from a nearby ridge, waiting for some lunatic like John to disobey orders aimed at preventing precisely this kind of clusterfuck. Not that his superiors gave a shit about a maverick pilot, but Uncle Sam preferred not to lose too many choppers: they cost money.

Thoughts spiralling like his bird, John braced as the tail hit the ground and smashed, chunks flying off and bouncing away down the hillside. John was thrown bruisingly hard against his harness as metal screeched across sand and rock, terrible noise and dust and pain until he smashed into something unforgiving and was gone.

\-----------------

The first thing he smelled was rotting straw. His mouth tasted of blood, congealed copper.

John groaned and opened his eyes, blinking slowly as the baffling monochromes resolved into shadowy corners and a beam of moonlight, split by the low, barred window into bright slanting oblongs on the packed-earth floor.

Jesus, he hurt. After three days in this shit-hole his bruises had bruises, thanks to being dragged out repeatedly for friendly chats with his captors. Just John, a bunch of bearded guys and the butts of their rifles. None of them spoke any English, so what they thought he could tell them was anybody's guess. Maybe they figured he was bluffing, being difficult. Beat him enough and he'd stop with the infidel crap and start spouting Pashto or Dari. Whatever: he was sticking with name, rank and serial number.

He was still stunned to be alive, dragged from the wreckage of the Pave Hawk barely harmed. Sure, he was bruised up and he'd been out cold, but only for a few minutes, not long. His head hurt but he didn't feel concussed despite a cut and a tender lump above his left ear.  _Should have put your fucking helmet back on before take-off_. Yeah, well. Should have done a bunch of things. Or  _not_  done them, but it was too late now.

This place, the village where they'd brought him, was further up in the hills. Just a cluster of stone and mud houses on the hillside, tumbledown walls and a few windswept trees. He got to see a little more each time they hustled him out to chat. Not so much when they dragged him back with his eyes swollen shut or stinging with sweat. Mostly all he saw was the argumentative dudes with beards, a bunch of goats, and brief glimpses of raggedy kids peering out from shadowed doorways, then a flash of dark robes as one of the women grabbed them by a skinny arm and yanked them back inside.

He didn't think they were Taliban. Too small, too disorganized, and not very militarized despite all the rifles and whatever they'd brought the helicopters down with – RPGs, probably. But hell, some of the guns were antiques. For sure they'd have links with a local Taliban base or some warlord; they'd have sent word. It was only a matter of time before someone better connected and scarier than these guys showed up. Probably the villagers wanted to sell him, or use him to prove loyalty, curry favor. He was currency. Which meant he was dead meat.

John rolled painfully to hands and knees and groped for the water jar, pulling on the chain they padlocked around his ankle whenever they left him in the cellar. He drank a little of the luke-warm water, swilling it around his mouth. Wincing, he probed with his tongue: probably a couple of loose teeth. The water tasted sweet but he rationed himself. His stomach hurt like a bastard and if he had too much he'd just throw up.

This shit, the casual brutality, he could take. Well, maybe not for long and not if they really went to town on his kidneys. He didn't think he was pissing blood yet but he wasn't pissing much at all. Too dry for that. What these guys were doing wasn't torture, though, and other than that red-bearded prick they didn't even seem all that malicious. Just kind of mouthy and frustrated, arguing with each other as much as with him. The tall one with the dyed orange beard was another thing entirely. His eyes glittered and he spat curses, seeming to enjoy smashing his gun butt into John's foot or knocking him flat and kicking him in the ribs. The others had restrained him once or twice, and they often broke off from beating John to yell at old red-beard. John guessed he was a hajji, maybe more of an extremist, but who knew.

What he did know was that he had to get away if he wanted to make it out alive. But he was bruised and dehydrated, half-starved and chained up in a cellar at the ass-end of nowhere. He had no fucking idea how he was going to escape before the really bad guys arrived and it stopped being amateur hour.

It was cold now, the seasons turning towards autumn, and they'd taken most of his clothes. He lay down on the straw pallet and burrowed into some thin rags that were his only bedding. His chained leg chafed, the links rubbing raw skin under his ankle bone. Eventually he slept a little, starting awake from nightmares in which he carried Holland on his back across the sand. He was spouting all sorts of reassuring bullshit but Holland wasn't answering, and blood kept trickling down John's back and soaking his shorts. John lay awake for some time after that, staring into the darkness.

\-----------------

"Hey, buddy!" John whispered through the barred horizontal slit of a window. He couldn't get close to it with the chain around his ankle and the window was deeply set into the mud-brick wall, so he couldn't see out very well either. He heard the kids murmuring to each other outside, then a thin brown hand slid through the bars and left a handful of mulberries on the thick windowsill. There were sounds of a scuffle, and the patter of feet running away. "Manana tashakor!" John called after them. He thought that was "thanks" in Pashto but he wasn't sure.  
  
John crawled to the end of his chain and reached up, managing to knock the fruit onto the floor where he could reach them more easily. He dusted the fat berries off as best he could and gulped them greedily, closing his eyes at the tart, sweet burst of juice. Not that eating food off a dusty cellar floor in Afghanistan was a great idea, but John figured he'd built up some immunity after a week of diarrhea when he'd first arrived in the country. Anyway, the mulberries were probably the only thing keeping him from scurvy after three weeks in the cellar. The villagers fed him, but not much, and only rice and a thin vegetable gruel.

John doubted that the locals had much more to eat themselves – he'd heard about droughts and food shortages back in Kabul. It meant they were still planning to sell or exchange him, but although they'd stopped beating him after the first few days, nothing else had happened and John was going crazy with the suspense. Not to mention the boredom. If it hadn't been for the village kids peering in his window slit he thought he'd have cracked up long since.

He only had a handful of words but they loved it when he tried, chattering through the narrow opening until someone chased them away.  _Salaam_  he knew, the universal greeting, and  _manana tashakor_ , and  _sahr pikheyr_  which he thought was "good morning", but he used it all day long. Then there were numbers he'd picked up bargaining in the Kabul markets, but he only knew _yaw, dra, dray_  – one, two, three. He used  _za na poheegum_  a lot more: "I don't understand". The kids had taught him  _zama num_ John  _de_ , which he thought was "my name is John" but hell, they might be teaching him to say "John is Satan's asshole" for all he knew.

He drank a little more water – not too much as they didn't let him use the privy very often – and started another series of sit-ups on the pallet. He was stronger now than two weeks ago, only a few recent bruises from minor thwacks with rifle butts to keep him in line when they let him out to piss. The damn chain hurt every time he moved, but he gritted his teeth, finishing the set of sit-ups then rolling over clumsily and managing fifteen push-ups before collapsing, winded.

He might have napped a little – he'd been doing that a lot, due to being half-starved and in the absence of anything else to pass the time. Loud voices woke him, arguing in Pashto: a group of men, approaching the door and one of them with a new, deep voice he didn't recognise: a stranger. John shrank back against the far wall. Crap, this was it. Suddenly the endless waiting leavened by brief interludes dicking around with the kids didn't seem half so bad.

The stranger's voice growled a demand, setting off another round of arguments outside. John heard the key turn in the old-style padlock and braced himself. Probably be dragged out and beaten again, at best, or handed over to some hard-asses from Taliban HQ for interrogation. He tried to school himself, slowing his rapid breathing and tamping the fear down so as not to let the bastards see it.

The low door opened and hot noonday sunshine flooded in, then a large form draped in dusty cotton robes ducked under the lintel and blocked most of the light. The door slammed behind him, leaving them with John's small window as the only source of illumination. His eyes were more dark-adapted than the newcomer's, and he registered two things immediately: the guy was huge and he had an equally big rifle.

"Well, hi there" said John, trying to put a hefty dose of sarcasm in his tone.

"As-salaamu' alaykum," replied the guy, face shadowed in the darkness beside the door. He was bearded and he had on one of those flat brown pakol hats John couldn't help likening to a cowpat. He was also smart enough to stay just out of reach of the end of John's chain.

"Uh, I'm just gonna say  _za na poheegum_  and get that out of the way from the word go," said John. "But for what it's worth,  _zama num_  John Sheppard  _de_  and that's all you're getting out of me."

"Yeah, I know," said cowpat hat.

"You what?" said John. He didn't think many of the Taliban spoke English. Bummer. If they did, and they interrogated him, he wasn't going to be able to bullshit them half as easily. This guy sounded fluent.

"The kids told me there was an American soldier called 'Jarn' locked up in old Rashid's cellar. Reckoned it had to be you. Rashid was feeding me some line about how the authorities from Kabul had taken you away couple of weeks ago."

"Do we know each other? Your English's really good," said John, feeling kind of stunned. "Where'd you learn to speak it so well?"

"Seattle," said the guy with a flash of white teeth, "and Hawaii. Not that I went to fancy prep schools like you did, Shep, but I get by. Your Pashto's for shit, though."

John slumped back against the wall. "Dex? Is that you?" His heart was pounding, tears of relief blurring his eyes. He sniffed and wiped his face on his arm, unable to take in this sudden reversal. "Shit, Dex."

 

 

 

Dex rose fluidly from his squat and crossed the room, hunkering down beside John and gripping his shoulder, shaking him a little. "Yeah, it's me, you dumb bastard. Why the fuck'd you go off against orders and get yourself shot down in Taliban country?"

"Holland," John whispered. "And Mitch. But I got there too late."

Dex's face darkened. "Shit. I knew they were MIA. Was kinda hoping you might all be being held together."

John shook his head. "No survivors – the locals must have some RPGs. The same bastards that got them were waiting for me. They brought me here and I've been chained up in this shit-hole for over three weeks. When I heard them coming for me with a stranger in tow.... I thought you were…"

Dex squeezed his shoulder again. The touch felt good, grounding. "Yeah, I know, sorry about that." He glanced across at the door. " _They_ think so, too, that I'm some big cheese from the nearest encampment. You're luckier than a pig with a parachute, man, that they didn't already hand you over. If it wasn't for the feud old Rashid's got going with Wasim, the hajji, they'd have bartered you off long since."

"The red-beard?" John asked, incredulous. " _He_  saved me?"

"Yeah. Kind of," Dex said, squatting down against the wall beside John. "He wanted to kill you himself as an infidel enemy dog, but Rashid figured he might be able to sell you. The village elders have been arguing themselves hoarse from what the kids said, ever since they captured you. The kids reckon there hasn't been so much action around here since Farzad's brother-in-law shot him in the ass and ran off to Kabul."

"Fuck. But how are you here? They chopper you in?" Dex grinned, teeth white above his scraggly beard, and that was new – he'd been clean-shaven when John'd last seen him. "What's with all this? The hair? You had a buzz-cut the last time I saw you, and that was only a few months ago."

"Six months. But yeah, the dreads are fake. I'd been growing mine, got these woven in. Man, that took forever – most boring eight hours of my life." He paused. "Y'know they've been training me for Special Ops?"

John nodded. He'd been angry at the brass for targeting someone with a mixed ethnic background that let him pass as a tribesman. Truth was, he'd been angry at Dex for going, partly for breaking up their team, but hell, John had had the hots for him for months. He'd never said anything – never would, even if the regs allowed it. Dex was straight, as far as he knew. He'd had a girl in Kabul – a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontières, Melena. She'd been killed by a suicide bomber just outside the hospital where she worked, and Dex had closed off after that. He'd always been good with languages and John could see that he really wanted to kill Taliban, so he guessed it was inevitable that the brass recruited him. Hadn't stopped John missing the hell out of him, and pining, just a little.

"Yeah, well," said Dex. "Brushed up my Pashto and Dari. Been infiltrating local villages, gathering intel. Kabul got word to me that two Pave Hawks had gone down hereabouts and I wasn't too far away so I said I'd handle it. Would have gotten here sooner but I had to hide out and see how the land lay."

John went to speak but Dex gripped his arm, hard, a finger to his lips. He pushed John down into the bedding and started yelling at him in Pashto. John stared up, frowning, but after a while Dex cocked his head and listened intently then eased up, grabbing the water jar for a drink. John made a questioning face and Dex grunted. "Heard them outside, eavesdropping at the door. Gone now." He grinned and took another swallow, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Thirsty work, this acting."

John scrambled up and grabbed the jug himself. Christ, his mouth was dry. "Need to watch that low window, there," he said, pointing. "The kids peek in sometimes. Others too, maybe."

Dex nodded. "Look," he said. "Gotta get you out of here before the Taliban  _do_  show up or Wasim gets sick of waiting. Only a matter of time. I gotta go do some bartering with Rashid. I could try to steal the key but in places like this it's harder than you'd think. There's always some damn chicken or goat that gives the alarm, and it's not like I can get Rashid drunk, him being a good Muslim. But there are ways."

"You're gonna buy me off Rashid?" John made a face. "Wasim's not gonna like that."

Dex snorted softly. "Yeah, for sure. Nope, I'm just gonna make it  _look_  like I'm bartering for you so's to take you back for interrogation. They don't expect these sorts of negotiations to be done and dusted quickly, like to draw 'em out and get as much gossip out of a newcomer as they can. They'll feed me and give me a place to sleep. Once it's dark I'll slip back and pick the padlock on your door. What?" He grinned at John's raised eyebrows. "They do teach  _some_  useful tricks in Special Ops training, Shep. So I'll pick the lock to the door and deal with that one on your ankle chain but you're still gonna need boots, and a disguise. Can you walk a little, barefoot? They didn't beat the soles of your feet?"

Jesus. John shook his head. "I can walk. My feet'll get bruised and cut before long, though."

"'s okay, I've got a campsite higher up where the kids graze their sheep. The rest of my stuff's there. Been camping out, making friends with the herders. Got spare boots for you there." Dex reached into his robes and pulled out a folded package of black cloth, hiding it under John's sleeping pallet. "Put that on after it's dark. After they've left you to sleep." John nodded. Great, proper clothes at last.

Dex did the shouting thing again and then banged on the door and they let him out. John got the usual rice and gruel and a trip to the privy before they locked him in, chain and all, and left him for the night. There was still some light coming in through the side window, even though dusk was falling, so he got out the clothing Dex had left and unwrapped it.

"Shit," said John, staring at the chadri in his hands. It was black and all-enveloping, the headpiece intricately pierced and embroidered over the eye-mask. Oh, man, and he'd so been looking forward to proper pants and maybe a shirt. He wondered if Dex thought this was hilarious and decided he probably did. Even though it was practical, and, yeah, good camouflage.

\-----------------

He'd managed to fall asleep by the time Dex came back, startling him awake with a hand across his mouth before picking the lock chaining his ankle to the wall. Dex worked by feel as it was before moonrise and pitch dark. There was a click and the chafing weight fell away with a soft metallic clunk. Dex leaned into him and patted his face and shoulders. "You're not– you got the chadri?"

"Yeah, I got it," whispered John, "Couldn't be sure they wouldn't come back in here and find me in it though. Do I have to?"

"Yeah. C'mon, Shep, we gotta look like villagers if anyone sees us in the street. Plus, it'll keep you warm."

John sighed and pulled the thing on: the cloth was musty, smelling faintly of turmeric and cumin. It was nearly pitch dark in the cellar and now he had a suffocating goddam veil on as well. Dex grabbed him and helped him out the door, pushing his head down to make sure he didn't bash it on the low lintel.

John's legs were stiff and unused to walking and he was hopelessly disoriented in the dark tent of the chadri. Being hustled up the narrow streets with Dex gripping his upper arm, blinded by the thick veil and tripping over his long skirts made John feel weirdly like a teenage romantic heroine being dragged home from an unsuitable tryst by her enraged father. His relationship with his own father hadn't been stellar and there'd been ultimatums and sullen defiance aplenty, but at least it'd never come to this.

They reached the farthest edge of the village without any injuries except to John's dignity, and Dex let John stop and catch his breath. The moon was rising, silvering the path and the huddled houses below, but they were in the shadow of a rocky outcrop so safe enough. Nothing moved in the darkened village, and Dex blew out a breath of relief. John slipped off the chadri, shivering in the cold night air. He wrapped it around his shoulders sideways, like a cloak. Not as warm, but at least he could see what the hell he was doing. Dex beckoned, and they pressed on up the hill.

\-----------------

John stared into the fire, mesmerised by the flames but feeling slightly more human after hot soup, flatbread, and coffee. They hadn't delayed long at the herders' camp, needing to get well clear of the village before anyone noticed John's escape. Dex had led him to a base he'd used before, well back in a cleft in the rocks where their fire was hidden. It had been a gruelling trek to this secluded valley, and John had been trembling with fatigue by the time they arrived.

True to his word, Dex had had boots waiting for him at the sheep pasture – John didn't ask how he'd acquired them. They were battered, but fit him well enough with Dex's spare pair of socks. Clothes were waiting as well, a salwar kameez and drawstring pants, and John abandoned the chadri, bundling it up for emergencies. Dex gave him a long, russet colored scarf and helped him wrap it around his head and neck, half covering his face.

John rubbed his eyes, drowsy, and a little too warm now with the fire reflecting off rock walls on either side. He unwound the turban-like scarf, scratching a hand through his filthy hair, and wincing away from the scabbed-over cut above his ear. "You got a head-wound?" asked Dex, suddenly sharp, kneeling beside him.

"Nah, just a bang, it's not serious. 's from the crash, when they brought me down with the RPG. Crap aim, they barely clipped the rotor or I wouldn't be here now. The beatings opened up the cut some, but I don’t think it's infected."

"Lemme see." Dex turned his head so the firelight played over it and ran his fingers through John's hair, pushing it this way and that as he peered at the healing scab. "Yeah, it looks okay. Anything else I should know about?" His long fingers slid through John's hair, exploring the rest of his scalp and John gave a soft, involuntary moan of pleasure. Dex chuckled. "How badly beat up are you? Ribs okay?"

"Yeah," muttered John, embarrassed by his slip. "Nothing broken I know of, and the bruising's not bad now. They stopped with the worst beatings a couple weeks ago."

"Okay. Lie down on the sleeping bag. Yeah, face down."

John craned around to peer at Dex over his shoulder. "What?"

"Shut up, Shep. Gonna give you a massage. You just walked for four hours after being chained up in a cellar for three weeks. Your muscles'll give you hell tomorrow and we don't exactly have a spa here you can soak in." John let himself relax back into the bedding, head pillowed on his arms. He was too goddam tired to argue, anyway, even if it was the best and the worst idea he'd ever heard.

Dex's hands were big and warm, and John fell into a daze of pleasure, letting himself groan and relax into it as his knotted muscles loosened. He was vaguely aware of Dex pushing his tunic and loose cotton pants this way and that to work on his back muscles, his calves and thighs, but the fact that he was hard didn't become a problem until Dex suddenly rolled him over to work on his front.

John flushed and flung an arm across his eyes. "Sorry. Um. Involuntary reaction?"

Dex gently pulled John's arm away from his face. "Want me to suck you?" he asked, lips curling in a smile, his eyes dark and locked on John's.

John made a noise in his throat and pressed the heel of his hand against his cock, staring up at Dex open-mouthed.

"I'm gonna take that as a yes," said Dex with a smirk. He slid his hand into John's pants and around John's cock, and John curled up a little, gasping.

"But you, you're not–"

"Not what? Human?" asked Dex, giving John's cock a couple of loose strokes. John gave a half-pained grunt and thrust helplessly up into his hand.

"Not… _Jesus_ …not into  _men_ ," he panted, giving way to the need to roll his hips as Dex stroked him.

Dex shrugged. "I like women. Doesn't mean I don't like guys." He grinned and twisted his hand, then let go and pulled the drawstring pants down, taking John's cock in his hand again and bending his head. At the very last moment he paused and looked up through his lashes at John, who was propped on his elbows, panting and staring down, wild-eyed. "Always liked you, Shep. Just, I was with Melena. Now I'm not." And before John could say anything to that, he was arching up into heat and wetness and Dex's curling tongue, and the words went away for a while.

Later, John curled against Dex's chest, pushing his shirt up to suck and lick as his slicked up hand worked Dex's cock. Dex's head fell back and John buried his nose in the soft skin of his throat, biting and kissing, whispering  _c'mon, yeah, c'mon_ , as he pulled the pleasure up and out, until Dex's thighs trembled, hips stuttering as he pulsed into John's hand.

Later still, with dawn lightening the sky in the east, John woke from his nest in the sleeping bags to hear Dex talking softly into some sort of transmitter. "Yeah, he's okay. Could have been a lot worse…chopper he went after didn't make it… RPGs…dunno, there's no Taliban here, just freelancers…got the coordinates? Yeah, 0800."

"What's up," John asked, bleary, and Christ, Dex was right, his legs felt like someone'd worked them over with a baseball bat. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he cursed, trying to massage the cramps from his thighs.

"Bad, huh?" asked Dex, hunkering down and kneading his calves, strong fingers digging in.

"Ow, ow, ow, fucking  _ow!"_  complained John, and Dex laughed and hauled him up to hobble about and do stretches until he could move again. He waved at the transmitter. "You're in touch with a base somewhere?"

"Yeah, Kabul," Dex said, packing it away in a waterproof box. "Leave it here and report in when I can." He looked up, sidelong. "Got you a ride."

John stilled. "A chopper?" Dex nodded. John sighed and bit his lip, kicking at some gravel. Man, was he in trouble. "It's gonna be bad," he said quietly, looking up to meet Dex's eyes, bright in his shadowed face in the half-light of dawn.

"Yeah," agreed Dex, frowning sympathetically. "They're gonna ream you a new one."

"And some," said John, trying to straighten his motley clothes into some semblance of order. His hair was a write-off and he ran his hands through it kind of desperately, then gave up and put the headscarf back on. Suddenly the Taliban seemed almost appealing, compared to what Colonel Sumner was gonna do to him, back at base. The Colonel had him pegged as a wild card who didn't always follow orders. He might not avoid a court-martial, this time.

Something Dex had said filtered through, belatedly. "Wait, you said you got  _me_  a ride. Don't you mean  _us?_ "

Dex shrugged apologetically. "Got stuff to do here, Shep. Mission's not over yet, long as I keep clear of Rashid and the boys. I gotta stay."

"Damn," said John, turning away, throat tight. "Don't know when I'll see you again then, buddy. They're most likely gonna kick me to the curb, or bust me right down, if I'm lucky." He laughed bitterly. Lucky. "Might be flying traffic watch for some cheap-ass radio station, next time we cross paths."

They didn't say much after that, working quietly to break up the camp and pack Dex's gear away. John had nothing to take back – just a scribbled report from Dex, not even the dog tags he'd collected from the crash site. Rashid had taken those.

Out on the hillside it was lighter, dawn a flush of pink on the horizon. They made their way down to the plateau, following a rough trail across the rock-strewn hillside to what Dex said was the pick-up site. It was cool in the early morning, fingers of sun edging up into the sky as the sound of an approaching helicopter grew louder.

"You still surf?" Dex's voice was raised to reach John over the roar of the incoming chopper.

"What? Uh, yeah, when I can," John shouted back. He cocked his head, puzzled. "Why?"

"My tour ends in another eighteen months, Shep. Not gonna re-up. Plan to head for Honolua Bay for a while, chill out. Maybe I'll see you there."

The chopper circled once, then sank toward the pick-up site. John clutched Dex's report more tightly in his hand as the rotor wash blew their clothes back. Dex clamped a hand down on his flat hat, dreads flying, and grinned at John, teeth white against his dark face and beard. "Insha'Allah, John," he shouted.

"Yeah, okay, maybe," said John softly, not sure what it all meant, but wanting it to mean something. Then, louder: "Insha'Allah, Ronon." He leaned in closer to Dex, who raised his eyebrows. "Hey, and that hat? Looks like a cowpat." Then he ran for the open door of the Pave Hawk through clouds of swirling dust.

 

\- end -

 

**Author's Note:**

> Chadri – enveloping head to toe gown with a pierced headpiece across the eyes – Afghan name for a Burqa  
> Dari – version of Persian spoken in Afghanistan  
> Hajji – one who has completed the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca  
> Honolua Bay – popular Hawaiian surfing beach  
> Insha'Allah – if God wills it  
> Pakol – flattened hat worn by some Afghan men  
> Pashto – language of the Pashtun people of Afghanistan  
> Pave Hawk – search and rescue helicopter used in Afghanistan  
> RPG – rocket propelled grenade


End file.
